DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings lost a point in frustrating fashion Sunday, to a team that is well below them in the standings but has had their number.

Still, coach Mike Babcock found it difficult to be too critical. Playing without their two-best players (Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg) and their No 1 goaltender (Jimmy Howard), the Red Wings again got good performances from several young players and ended their longest homestand of the season feeling good about the direction they are headed.

“When you’re up 3-1, should you win? Yup,” Babcock said. “When you’re up 4-2, should you win? Absolutely.”

But he couldn’t complain about a 3-1-1 homestand.

“If you’d have told me before the homestand that we’re going to do that I’d have said great,” Babcock said. “I liked a lot of the things we did as a team.

“Maybe it’s easier to not be as critical when you have so many young guys, but I think the reality is our group’s making progress. I like our competition level and our work ethic. Some execution at the end could have been a little better. That’s all part of being young.”

Tomas Tatar and Riley Sheahan, playing on a line with Tomas Jurco, were dangerous all night long. Tatar and Sheahan each scored a goal, on a nice assist from the other. The line combined for nine shots.

“All three of us are really skilled, fast, young guys,” Tatar said. “We have lots of energy and I think we’re playing good right now and we have to keep playing better and better and hopefully those guys can stay here as long as they can and I think so far they prove that they belong.”

Sheahan scored his second goal in as many games, his third of the season, on the power play to give his club a 3-1 lead at 18:15 of the second period. Parked in front of the net, he took a pass from Tatar and made a good move in tight to beat Flint native Tim Thomas.

Tatar’s goal, at 13:33 of the third, made it 4-2, as he wired a wrist shot after Sheahan made a good move to set him up.

“He’s just so good on the puck,” Sheahan said of Tatar. “When the puck is down low, he’s a blood hound. I think he gets under the other team’s skin with the pressure he puts on the defensemen. Jurc is the same thing. He’s so good in the offensive zone using his big body. We all just have some chemistry.”

But Drew Shore scored at 14:28 and Brad Boyes notched a shorthanded goal at 16:14 to tie it.

Thomas stopped all three shooters in the shootout (Tatar, Daniel Alfredsson, Patrick Eaves), while Nick Bjugstad and Jonathan Huberdeau scored for the Panthers.

“We had leads, so we can’t let this happen at the end of the game,” Tatar said. “I think we (have) enough experience in this locker room to (not) let this happen so obviously it’s a little down, but we have to refocus and make sure we play the next game good.”

Said Babcock: “The bottom line is we didn’t keep the puck out of our net.”